Microsoft pain recedes

Following the pain reported yesterday at reference 1, I can now report that the pain has receded. A night's sleep worked wonders.

First thing yesterday morning, that is to say Thursday, down to Smith's to find that they did indeed still stock the Filofax diaries of the one week on two sides format desired (with both colour and Christian festivals) - forgetting until it was too late that I was supposed to be boycotting Smith's when convenient, on account of reports of their abuse of their position as monopoly supplier of newspapers to small outlets, such as our local Costcutter, the owner of which got quite hot under the collar when I mentioned the matter, first reported in the Guardian in respect of small outlets in Brighton. I should have checked with Ryman's first, the other likely source for Filofax in Epsom.

A lot of appointments have now been reinstated by a combination of checking my pile of concert tickets and by checking the results of likely search terms in gmail. One was recovered by turning on the old telephone and grabbing the otherwise deleted appointment before synchronisation kicked in, this, to my surprise, happening despite the absence of the SIM card. See reference 2. I shall probably get some more by checking against the BH kitchen calendar. She, I might say, is looking rather smug.

The plan then is for Filofax to be the master calendar, but to continue to maintain the Microsoft calendar on the telephone, at least for the week or so ahead, on account of its convenience. The only big catch being that I do not often, no longer wearing an old fashioned jacket, tweed or otherwise, wear a pocket big enough to take the Filofax.

With the whole sorry business being put down to a rehearsal against the day, hopefully some years off, when I have to abandon my Microsoft telephone, perhaps in favour of something more obviously from the Far East. Perhaps from Samsung or Huawei.

PS 1: I suspect the root cause to be something to do with the fact that all these electric calendar suppliers are deep into multiple calendars and elaborate synchronisation across devices. Perhaps when deep learning can spare a bit of time for the matter, we will get better at it.

PS 2: it is also the case that during my time at both the Treasury and the Home Office, there would have been no truck with rolling updates from Microsoft. There was a reasonably strict build (aka release) protocol for desktops, with build updates being released from time to time, perhaps once or twice a year. Any updates from Microsoft would be tested by the IT team and, if appropriate, incorporated into the next convenient build. Whereas us individual punters out in the wide world are expected to like rolling update. I bet Microsoft doesn't do it for the desktops within their own organisation!

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/microsoft-pain.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/new-phone.html.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=huawei. The association from 'huawei'. The fascinating interactions between our national security and the main chance.